Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Abigail and I were in the van a few days ago, and she told me that when she grows up, she wants to work at Orange Leaf (it’s a frozen yogurt shop where you can put as much froyo as you can fit in your cup, top it with lots of crazy candy toppings, and pay by the ounce – pretty much heaven to a four-year-old).

“What job are you going to be, when you grow up?” she asked.

“I’m already grown up, and I already have a job,” I answered.

“What!?” She started to laugh. “You don’t have a JOB.”

“Yes, I do. My job is taking care of you kids. I think it’s a lot of work.”

“That is not a job, Mama. You have to go somewhere and get paid for a job.”

“Well,” I said, “maybe one day I will get paid for being a writer. Can my book be my job?”

She shook her head at me, hardly believing that I needed these details spelled out. “If you want to be a AUTHOR, you gotta make a stand.”

I was not sure how to process this. Does my kid want me to write a book about a hard-hitting social justice topic? Is she telling me to take a stand for something important and honorable?

“What do you mean?”

“You need to get some boards and nail them together and stand there with your book and people give you money. Like when girls sell lemonade!”

We’ve lived in this house for over a year, now, and -as you do- we’re still in the process of decorating. There were several spaces that looked fine to guests, but weren’t quite done in my eyes.

So this fall, we got a large rug for the great room and a console table to go behind the couch in there.

And I went on an organizing rampage and Chris went out shopping for furniture, and we made over the rec room upstairs into more of a movie room.

If I were a fashion-y, design-y blogger, this is where you’d get a dozen pictures of my perfectly curated house and a totally Pinnable tutorial for fixing up your very own movie room.

I’m not that kinda blogger.

I tell you that, so I can tell you this story.

After our recent decorating spree, I was standing in the great room folding laundry. Jonas bopped down the stairs, and as he came through on his way to get a snack from the kitchen, he called out, “By the way, Mom, I really like the home upgrades. It’s looking great around here!”

Upgrades.

Because when you’re a Minecraft-obsessed almost-10-year-old, that’s about the extent of your home decor awareness and appreciation.

After baths, I always blow-dry Susannah’s hair. She almost always asks me to “make it poofy.” I have tried everything I can think, over the months, only to have every hairstyle rejected. Some with crying, even, and heartbroken wails of “that’s NOT poofy!” Tonight I had an epiphany when she made her request. I stopped the dryer. “Susannah, do you want your hair to look like Bella’s?” Susannah grinned. “YES! That’s it, poofy like Bella’s poofy hair!”

So I had to explain that Susannah’s hair is like mine, and I can make our hair can lay straight or stay curly, but I can’t make it “go like Bella’s.”

((Bella is a younger toddler at PDO, maybe two years old. She wears her hair in beautiful, natural, Afro-puffs {do they still call them that?!}). 😉 How sweet and funny is that?

When I opened Susannah’s door at the end of Quiet Time today, I quickly noticed a strange bright yellow spatter pattern all over her white bookshelf. My brain raced to process this: not pee, not vomit, what IS that? Then I spied a similar spatter pattern on the other end of the shelf, in bright pink.

“What….. what….?” I started to ask.“Oh, Mommy,” she started. Her tremulous voice told me that she was excited and proud of herself, but afraid she was about to get in trouble. “It is amazing. I can TRANSFORM my spit! See!”I just blinked.“Did you know that? If you chew up a crayon…. It will transform your spit! Into paint! Hey!!!” she got louder, exuberant in this discovery. “Jonas! Come see! I have transforming spit!”I left to get a towel. We cleaned the shelf; we brushed her teeth. I’m still a little stunned by this one. What possesses her?! All I can say for today’s QT is: at least she was quiet up there.

On the way to pick Jonas up from karate, I had another great conversation with Susannah. This time, her thoughts turned to marriage. She said something about marrying one of her friends… and when I suggested that might not be possible (since the friend is a girl), she rebutted with: “Well, if I find a boy to marry I will marry a motorcycle boy. Or a truck boy.”

“What,” I asked, “makes you like motorcycle boys and truck boys?”

She grinned and beat her eyelashes at me. “Mama! They are fast!”

“Hmmm. I guess they are. How do people know which boy they are going to marry?”

“Well, Mama, they just like him and then they dance.”

“I see,” I replied. “So when you get married, what are you and your motorcy le boy going to do?”

“I will kiss him and make a wish.”

“A wish?!”

She gives me that coy smile again. “Boys like to kiss and wish with their girls!”

(for the conversation I had with Susannah after we dropped Jonas off at karate, click here)

When I picked Jonas up from karate, he told us all about learning the next eight steps of his kata. And then the conversation turned to building a tower high enough to reach the clouds. Which reminded me to tell him the story of the tower of Babel. Which led to the topic of the invisible nature of God, and that we can’t see or reach heaven. And then:

“So what happens when everyone, every person, everyone, is just dead and in heaven? What happens to our Earth then?

I tried my best to explain the New Heaven and the New Earth, not that I’ve got a perfect theological grasp on it myself. But I figure “A+ for effort,” right?

“So. We get new bodies… Will it have skin?”“Will… your body have skin? Hmm. I don’t know, exactly. I’m not sure what our new bodies will look like. The Bible says they will be glorified bodies, like Christ has in heaven….”“I hope we have skin. What color will it be?”“I don’t know.”“I hope my new skin is brown. And a little ‘fleeesh.'”
Then Susannah chimed in, “And I hope mine is blue! And purple!”“You guys are awesome.”

*Jonas’ word “FLEEESH” is how he pronounces the color-word on that Crayola crayon that’s sort of pale pinkish. I think I like his version better, since it always struck me as unfair to call that one “flesh-colored” when actual human flesh comes in such a beautiful array of shades.

Susannah left Sunday School with some kind of white paper craft. I saw markery scribbles and stickers but had no idea what it was. In the car:Me: Susannah, what did you make today?S: It’sa emma-lote.Me: Oh, that’s a nice envelope! What are you going to do with it?S: I’m gonna put monies in my emma-lote.Me: Money?S: Yep, I’m gonna ask Daddy for monies. And put the pennies in the emma-lote. And say a prayer to give the emma-lote to God.Me: Oh, you’re going to give the money to God? That’s wonderful, when we give our money to God.S: Yes. I give the pennies to God. But not to Jesus. He’s dead.

Jonas was raving about some object – I truly have no idea what he was talking about at the start of this conversation, but then he said:J: …And it’s orange! I love orange! Orange is my favorite color.Me: Really?! I thought green was your favorite color.J: [peers at me over his glasses] No, mom. Orange is my favorite. Green is my malainus color.Me. …. “malainus”? What is malainus?J: You know. Like my toys that don’t go with any other toys. Mah-lain-us.Me: Um. Miscellaneous?J: That’s what I said. Green is my miscellaneous color.

A few days ago, we watched “The Business of Being Born” — well, I fast-forwarded to the births in the movie. Jonas and Susannah are fast becoming experts in all this baby stuff. After we watched the scene where the lovely woman with curly hair squats in the middle of a quiet, dim living room and births her baby on the wood floor, Jonas and I had one of the best conversations ever.

“Mommy! Did you see that?”

“Yes, I love it.”

“That’s what YOU’RE GOING TO DO??!”

“Yeah, babe, that’s the plan.”

He sat in awed silence for a moment. Then he bounced his rump on the couch and exclaimed, “Wow. Daddy and me are going to the store, and we are going to GET YOU A PRESENT.”